Getting Anxious with 11 days to GO!

This is going to be the classic, here's-what-I'm doing introductory post. I'm sure the exciting escapades of riding elephants with my beloved "We are Georgetown" basketball shirt and experimental eating of extremely spicy cuisine as well as adventures in the classroom will soon follow.

So what am I doing this summer?

I have the unique opportunity to join with Learning Enterprises as it sends four Georgetown students to two areas in Thailand – Taphanhin and Phitsanulok – to work with public school students. Many of these students have very little access to higher education due to barriers such as a lack of information, access to financial aid, or motivation.

I found out about Learning Enterprises after seeing a flyer on campus and attending an info session. It's a really innovative and unique organization founded in 1992 by college students to fill a niche-teaching English to non-English speakers all over the world. Learning Enterprises sent 120 volunteers to teach English in fourteen developing countries, expanding the horizons of nearly 5,000 students last year! Here's a video about LE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PD1bX3_tz7M

Nhaca, another rising sophmore at Georgetown will also be in Bangkratum with me (in Phitsanulok province), just down the road from me..more on the host family situation later. Here's a photo with our friend Lana, the Foreign Minister of Thailand (thank goodness for Georgetown booking amazing speakers, right?) and myself and Nhaca in April 2009.




Beyond teaching conversation-based English language classes, we are networking to create and maintain a mentorship program that will connect college students in Thailand with the young students in our schools. We are contacting Thai university students and hope to intiate a once-a-week letter writing campaign. We hope to also create a bond between the two areas where Learning Enterprises (LE) is sending volunteers. Nhaca and I are teaching elementary students and Crystal and Stacy (the other Georgetown folks) will be in Taphanhin with high-schoolers. The mentorship program can be adapted to have high school mentors for the elementary students. Mostly, we want this to be a Thais-helping-Thais program that allows for English practice and community bonding. The service project is sure to be a frequent topic of my blog, so get excited..or dtèun dtên ! The Thai script is ตื่นเต้น --> isn't it an intriguing language? Thai derives from Sanskrit and is like nothing I've ever seen before.

More to come....11 days and counting